Masi Lugano Honors Ernst Scheidegger with Comprehensive Retrospective

The Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana (Masi) in Lugano presents a major retrospective dedicated to Swiss photographer Ernst Scheidegger (1923-2016), curated by director Tobia Bezzola and Taisse Grandi Venturi. The exhibition explores Scheidegger's multifaceted career, beginning with his early, previously unseen photographs taken between 1945 and 1955 across Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. These images capture post-war reconstruction with an antididactic, lateral gaze. The core of the show features his celebrated portraits of artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Marc Chagall, Max Bill, Germaine Richier, and Le Corbusier, commissioned yet deeply introspective. A third section displays works by these artists from the Kunsthaus Zürich, including a small Dalí, a colorful Chagall, Le Corbusier's paintings, a Richier sculpture, and concrete works by Max Bill. The highlight is a room dedicated to Giacometti, showcasing Scheidegger's photographs of the artist alongside Giacometti's portrait of Scheidegger and two small-to-medium sculptures, illustrating their intense friendship and mutual influence. Scheidegger was also a Magnum photojournalist.